This invention relates generally to social networking systems, and more particularly to ranking and ordering stories presented to a social networking system user.
Social networking systems have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, and allow users to more easily communicate with one another. Users of a social networking system associate with other social networking system users, forming a web of connections. Additionally, users may share personal information and other stories with other users connected to them via a social networking system. Examples of information shared by social networking system users include contact information, background information, job information, interests, photos, notes, and/or other member-specific data.
Social networking systems often include a story shared by a user in a newsfeed of stories presented to other users connected to the user. A newsfeed typically includes set of stories selected from recently shared stories. Often, a social networking system users attributes of the user sharing the story and the user being presented with the newsfeed, as well as information about the content of the story, so that stories in the newsfeed are likely to be of interest to the user being presented with the newsfeed.
Many social networking systems include a system for selecting candidate stories for the newsfeed and for determining an order in which candidate stories appear in the newsfeed. Stories are frequently selected for inclusion in a newsfeed because they are likely to be of interest to the user viewing the newsfeed. This encourages the user viewing the newsfeed to continue using the social networking system. For example, a user viewing a newsfeed (a “viewing user”) may be more interested in stories relating to a specific user to which the viewing user is connected than in stories relating to other uses with which the viewing user rarely interacts. The social networking system often analyzes various factors, such as user history, story attributes, and user connections, to determine the candidate stories and their rankings for a newsfeed. Presenting stories in which a user is likely to have an interest in a newsfeed encourages additional use of a social networking system by users viewing the newsfeed.